Don’t Murder

I decided this week to look up the top 100 shows we can watch on streaming services, you know like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and whatever else is out there, and let me just give you a few of the top 20. At number 1 was Breaking Bad, a show about a high school chemistry teacher who finds out he has cancer, and after 20 years of teaching is about to lose everything because he can’t afford treatments, to fix his aging house, or pay for his new child on the way.

At 3 is the show The Sopranos, about Tony Soprano who is a mob boss in New Jersey who is struggling to balance his work life with all of his various criminal activities.

At 76 is the show Sons of Anarchy a crime drama series about the Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club, Redwood Original (SAMCRO), a close-knit outlaw motorcycle club operating in the fictional town of Charming, California. The reason I bring these up is because like many of the others on the list, all of these shows are about bad characters who do whatever it takes to make their lives better; they steal, they manipulate, they lie, and they kill people all to get what they want. The problem, or rather, the crux of the situation with all of these shows is somehow someway, the writers and the producers have tangled us up in these worlds in such a way where we don’t dislike the bad guy, in fact for some reason they have us rooting for the bad guy and all of the violent acts they commit. They have us hoping for escape from justice and being sad when the long arm of the law comes down and stops their criminal activity. It just kind of hit me with all of these shows and so many more how our world has started to condition us more and more to violence; the things that once sickened us we have now grown accustomed to as part of our everyday lives and we are desensitized to it.

Its not just us seeing all of these criminal things in the television and movies we watch but we are seeing it more and more in the world around us. Stories of murder plague our nightly news cycles whether it be local like the shooting we saw in Lexington a couple of weeks ago, or we see stories on the national news about people being killed in just an awfully brutal manner it has just become a part of our every day life. Today, we are going to deal with exactly that commandment in the decalogue as we start to look at how we are supposed to live in covenant with God in relation to the people around us. The sixth word this morning in Hebrew is short and to the point

לֹ֥֖א תִּֿרְצָ֖͏ֽח

lo’ tirsah

You shall not murder.

Two short Hebrew words that get straight to the point as one author said, “to make them as universally applicable as possible.” For some, they say another rendition of this may be to think of it as Honor Life, which we could see as we have walked through this now our sixth word. Remember, last week we talked about Honoring our mother and father, and we said that meant to give weight to and we spent some time discussing how this is hard for some of us because we didn’t have the greatest parents, but talked about how in the least this might mean thanking them for giving us life, and doing our best to not speak ill of them in a public setting and this one was the first of the words referring how to live in relation to one another. The first four were how we were to live and relate to God as we live in covenant with Him as he told us to have no other gods in addition to him; to not even attempt to try and make an idol that we would worship and see in place of Him, because no matter what we created it would never live up to the measure of who he really is. Third he told us not to misuse his name which is so similar to 2 because its all about speaking reverence to who he really is and holding him in esteem for who he is and what he has done. Two weeks ago we saw as God told us we were to take time to shabbat and worship him, you know truly worship him, not just show up to check something off of a list but worship him for who he is, to take time to remember all of the things he has given us and blessed us with, and to trust him with his plans in our lives even when we take the time to slow down which is so contrary to the world in which we live.

This morning we should probably talk a little bit about what this word means and what it doesn’t mean just so we have a good basis for what we are talking about. The idea of murder is something that not only divides the church but divides politics, and a place where we may not use those words but find ourselves at war so to speak. So, what is murder, why is it such an offense to God?

I love the way Dr. Hamilton describes murder in his volume on the book of Genesis. The problem comes as it relates to us being created in the image of God in Genesis 1:27

Genesis 1:27 ESV

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Dr. Hamilton says this, “To kill another human being is to destroy one who is a bearer of the divine image. Thus man’s divine creation should be a deterrent to criminal behavior. There is no evidence here that sin effaced the divine image. It is still resident in post-flood, post paradise man.”

So the problem is we are destroying this image that God created of himself. Our attack on another human being is an attack on the very image of God. So in our society what we start to do is argue about what is and isn’t murder, we will say one thing is and then there will be another group that will say well if that is murder, why is this not murder; why is one acceptable but the other is not.

There are instances in the Bible when taking the life of another is not considered to be murder, for instance when it comes to killing in wars, whether in defense or offense as the result of a command these instances have been laid out before us as not falling under this word in Exodus 13:19 and Exodus 17:14. However, the sanctity of life and the responsibility of taking life in these cases is fully recognized in scripture and you can see that in Exodus 30:10-16.

The other thing issue that get brought to light all the time in our society comes when we start talking about capital punishment. There is a whole group of people who argue a good God would not allow you to take the life of a person for any reason and this shouldn’t be allowed either, but look at what happens in Genesis 9. After the flood God is talking to Noah and giving him instructions and telling him what he should do and we find two verses when it comes to taking the life of a human.

Genesis 9:5 ESV

5 And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man.

Probably the biggest surprise here is we learn even animals will be accountable for taking a humans life but he goes on

Genesis 9:6 ESV

6 “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.

So we see here God himself proclaims if you take the life of another your life must be taken from you. This kind of makes clear the argument for capitol punishment in the case of murder. There are plenty who will say we give the death penalty for other reasons and in those cases you may have a leg to stand on in your argument against the death penalty.

From capitol punishment, we inevitably take a turn to abortion. When we come to this we talk about the sanctity of life, and really we are pointing out we are all made in the image of God and we cannot take the life of another. I think scripture is clear this is murder and wrong and we will have to find a way as a group to walk people down a road where we can save them from such decisions, but that is a discussion for a different day on how we can make a difference in the lives of women who feel they have no other choice.

It would be easy if we could just leave it at this, but we have talked about how these ten words were not just supposed to be guidelines for saying this is what we do and what we don’t do, and if we were to lay out these specific things we would risk doing just that, making a checklist of good and bad. However, these were meant as ways to give us a full life in the way we live with people around us and Jesus shows us how its not just about act, but its about intent, its about the heart of the issue. Remember, coming to know Jesus isn’t just about changing what you do, its about changing what you WANT to do.

In the sermon on the mount, Jesus is giving instruction and telling them how they should live and when he begins to talk about how personal relationships should go he says this.

Matthew 5:21–22 ESV

21 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ 22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.

Jesus has taken the sixth word and turned it to a place that it is even deeper than before, no longer can we just say I haven’t murdered someone physically, Jesus says we can murder them in our heart. I think here telling us actual murder starts with how we feel about people in our hearts and he tells us if we are holding on to that anger inside of us, it is just as bad if not worse than actually killing them. This would be the time for self reflection, who, if anyone are you holding this type of anger in your heart about, that when you think of them your skin boils and everything inside of you starts to get the ick? Jesus tells us we need to check those feelings and get them into the right place or we may be in for some trouble.

Now, I can hear some people now, just like last week when we talked about parents saying, but you don’t understand what they have done to me, you don’t understand the pain they have inflicted. I understand and trust me, I know the pain is real, but Jesus didn’t give us any caveats when he said these words, but the good news is he gave us some direction in what we should do next.

Matthew 5:23–24 ESV

23 So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

He says the first thing we should do is go and seek to be reconciled, to try to restore friendly relations with the person. If we have done something wrong to a person, this may be understandable, it may be hard to go and ask for forgiveness to try to rectify the situation but difficult to do nonetheless.

Couple years ago David and Lisa.

However, this is especially hard if we have done nothing wrong but bad things have been done to us, and in those moments it is important for us to offer forgiveness. I know, I know, I don’t know what they’ve done, but remember Jesus tells us if we don’t forgive we won’t be forgiven and its a super difficult thing. Here’s the thing, offering forgiveness doesn’t even mean the person has to accept or acknowledge the wrong they’ve done. If they have hurt you there is a chance they may never admit to it or feel like they need forgiveness because they haven’t done anything wrong, but the important thing is you have given that opportunity to them. You know what happens when you do that? Something inside of you starts to change, that anger you have held on to starts to dissipate and go away as you have let go of the bitterness in your heart and God can start to heal those wounds.

The problem for most of us is we like to put off these types of conversations and not get to them quickly, because whether we were the wrong doer, or the wrong was done to us it is hard. Reconciliation is difficult for most relationships and it is something we really have to try to walk through so we put it off because we know it will hurt. But Jesus had something to say about that as well.

Matthew 5:25–26 ESV

25 Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. 26 Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.

Jesus is telling us here we have to get to the bottom of these issues quickly, because we aren’t sure how much time we have left and if we keep putting it off we may die, or Jesus may return before we are able to get to a place of restoration and then we are in big trouble. Not only that, but the longer we let things go the worse they seem to get because peoples feelings start to fester and grow. Let me give you an example of when something isn’t dealt with quickly. Dan Western Hills story. Led worship 2 years as interim, no one liked it, no one told him. He applied for the job and then was told. Elders said you can’t tell a volunteer they are no good. He left the church hurt, and if someone had brought it to his attention sooner it may have been fixed.

Church while you may have never killed someone physically, how many are you killing in your heart every day with the way you think and your inner voice speaks about them? How many relationships do you need to seek reconciliation for? Are you willing to start today and go after those relationships.